Thermophysical properties of slags for process control

Thermophysical properties have been shown to be important in a number of industrial processes. Unfortunately, for a number of properties there are scant data available and/or the data that are available are of dubious quality. In the Thermo-Physical Property Group at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) the aim has been to develop measurement techniques capable of working in the difficult environments that are typical of industrial processes. This paper presents current developments at NPL in techniques to measure the thermal diffusivity of liquid slags using a laser flash and insights into the copper smelting process using interfacial tension techniques.